thinking about the romulan war

[danielcoffin]

i've been going over what little canonical information is available, as i was thinking of starting an enterprise-era game that would then carry over into the earth-romulan war (and then over into the birth of the federation, if i'm really lucky!). what vessels would earth have at its disposal to fight such a war? you've got enterprise, columbia presumably, and then maybe one or two more completed nx-class ships? four cruisers doesn't a fleet make. presumably, starfleet would still have a fleet of warp-2 or warp-3 vessels parked around earth... do you suppose starfleet would start an all-out refit campaign to swap out new warp-5 engines for those craft?

or maybe the war wasn't really much of war at all, just a few isolated clashes here and there. it certainly makes more sense considering that the conflict ended with a treaty conducted over subspace radio.

anyway, just random thoughts. anyone care to chime in?

daniel

[Cut]

The Romulan Wars are surely an intersting roleplaying opportunity, as is the time period between the prequel movies and the established ones in the Star Wars universe. Some frame work (canon wise) has been establishedm, but not so much to actually hinder great storytelling.

The problem with the fleet sizes is a valid one. I'd say that those few NX vessels would be the flagships and other ships (the daedalus class?) and older ones would make for the main parts of the fleets.

What I have always thought to be a hard to incorporate thing is to keep a few things established in TOS in order, like there can be no visual contact, and no Romulan corpses anywhere. So it's most likely a space war only. But the Romulans lack the classic Warpdrive at that point of time. So it would be hard to imagnine how they could really loose against the Federation...

In my eyes it's more like a cold war, with tension building up all over the place and then some major battles at some star systems and the occasional mysterious happening as the Tomed incident, where the Romulans eridicated something, before it could fall into Federation hands.
That or something like it would be the thing that I'd have behind my adventures set in that time frame.

Just rambling what came to mind...

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Well, we don't really know the full extent of Starfleet military forces at that time. I assume that major ports and colonies – Deneva, Vega, Proxima, and the numbered Earth Colonies – will have Intrepid-type vessels and "unnamed class II" type vessels around them for patrol and assistance.

The extent of other military's involvement (Andorians? Tellarites?) is unknown. Although I can see friendly governments–especially Tellarites, if paid well–allowing for the use of their shipyards to hastily construct more NX-class ships. Kumari-class ships lent to the humans would certainly prove useful.

Now, judging from the "Droneship trilogy," the Romulans fought the war with the hope of quickly destroying the humans to prevent them from de-balkanizing the local region around Vulcan. The war was probably a small part of a larger plan that assumed the humans would be pushovers. Perhaps this reflected a shift in policy in the Romulan Senate toward overt aggression.

This means what was planned as a quick strike towards Earth that might have gotten bogged down on their colonies, and then a Starfleet counterattack towards Romulan staging areas (Codename Cheron?). When this happens, maybe a precarious political alliance in the Senate unravels (an important heir of the Kassus lineage dies in the Battle of Earth Colony 2 or something) and the new, xenophobic isolationist faction negotiates the formation of the Neutral Zone.



A cool idea, I think, would be to have one or two episodes from the romulan perspective, as a crew of a warbird in the strike force or on a special mission for the war. This would allow your players to know what the Romulan reasoning for the war is without having to reveal it to their characters.

[Cut]

A cool idea, I think, would be to have one or two episodes from the romulan perspective, as a crew of a warbird in the strike force or on a special mission for the war. This would allow your players to know what the Romulan reasoning for the war is without having to reveal it to their characters.

The romulan perspective on things is nearly always an intersting thing. That is what I like so much about them. You never know, what you gonna get. They are somehow like a box of choclates

You know just enouhg about the people that you can guess what their motives and moves might be but they remain a mysterious enough people, not like the Klingons that have been bleed out of real mysteries in TNG and later on and more massively in DS9.

With the Romulans you can never be quite sure. I'd love the LUG Romulan boxed set.

That all said, I very much like your idea.
Playing a Romulan or in a romulan influenced campaign has a very high interest rating with me...

[Pericles]

While not a Coda or ICON site, the best information on early Trek ships to include the Romulan War is Vintage Starships you will have to do the conversion to your system of choice, but you can not beat this site for background material.

[JALU3]

Other good sites regarding ships of that era, and other information are

Ex Astris Scientia

Starfleet Museum